New Digital Face of Munich’s Favorite Local Newspaper

⠀ 

Client

Abendzeitung Digital GmbH & Co. KG manages the digital face of the most popular local newspaper in Munich, Abendzeitung, known for its regional and international news coverage, as well as entertainment and nationwide recognized sports content.

Overview

The most popular Munich daily newspaper joined forces with intive to redesign their digital channel, improve the mobile user experience and expand their target group.

Services

UX/UI Design

Industry

Media

Refreshed design that carries the brand

How to modernize the look and feel of a popular portal without losing the distinctive and broadly recognized style? How to improve the user experience without compromising successful advertising? How to attract a slightly younger audience without disturbing the existing readership? Abendzeitung Digital decided to rely on premium, user-centric design and teamed up with intive to reimagine their online portal, boost their mobile channel, and introduce further personalization to their online readers.

An environment for successful advertising

To enable an agile approach, intive’s designers chose the Kanban method for their design process. During the discovery and ideation workshops with AZ they identified the main challenges and created target personas that significantly influenced their user-centered design decisions. Their goals included improving the mobile experience and introducing a clearly structured, reader-friendly format that would answer both user and business needs. The new design uses more white space which translates into better readability and a simple, modern look. Now ads seamlessly blend in with the organic content, creating an attractive and brand consistent feeling. The grey ad background clearly differentiates between the content and advertisements.

Mobile first with a clear-cut vision

To make things simpler, a design system was put in place with reusable components and a clear structure. Based on the AZ’s existing color identity, the design team created a new color scheme for the digital channel and optimized it for an easy-to-navigate UI. Now each main news group has its own color theme which makes it easier to browse through the content. Furthermore, AZ’s readers can now enjoy a more tailored, community-driven experience. With “Meine AZ” they’re offered a personalized feed and comment history as well as customized notifications and exclusive lotteries.

Optimized experience on all devices

Fully responsive web design called for new spacings and grid breakpoints. From mobile, tablet to desktop, users can now experience optimized navigation and a clearer content structure. On mobile devices, intive’s designers opted for accessible bottom navigation that brings the most important features closer to the user.

A little better every day

Daily, up-to-date, honest – these are the AZ’s qualities valued by its loyal offline and online readership. The digital version of the Abendzeitung needs to be as focused on quality and nationwide recognized legacy, as on the innovative angle. Refreshing the look and feel of the digital channel opens up new advertising opportunities, answers the ever-evolving market trends, and offers readers an engaging, personalized experience. The Abendzeitung is committed to getting closer to its existing and future audience, and becoming a little better, every day.

Our challenge was to modernize our digital channel while prioritizing the satisfaction of the existing readership and our advertisers. intive’s design team, recognized with plenty of industry awards, knew exactly how to approach our complex, stakeholder needs. Abendzeitung is an integral part of the Munich culture and it brings all the latest news and entertainment since 1948. Now, with the launch of our new news portal, we have reached another milestone in the implementation of the evening newspaper's digital strategy.

Sandra Saller
CEO at AZ Digital Verwaltungs GmbH

Wie können wir helfen?

Jetzt anfragen

Du willst ins Team? Gerne!

Mitmachen